


Bandages

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, hints at conversion therapy, mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24704536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Charles has been using Klinger’s company to keep the horror of war at bay. Pierce has a problem with the arrangement.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Bandages

Someone is shaking him, hard enough to bounce his head off of the travesty of a mattress that barely manages to cushion him from the frame of the army cot. He groans something meant to be a question, but it’s more sound than words. 

“Charles needs you,” Hawkeye says, and he’s up.

***

Hunnicutt is on rounds, so the Swamp houses only two-thirds of the 4077th’s surgical staff. Charles is not asleep, only dozing, half-wondering if he’ll ever be freed of this world of dirt and blood, shrapnel fragments gleaming in white bed pans, socks ruined by the blood that’s dripped into his boots. He has no one to tell about these near-daily horrors and envies the young Dr. Pierce’s relationship with the senior model; not only does his father love him, he’s a medical man, so he can take his son’s letters of destroyed bodies and graphic horror. He has only Honoria to confide in and he would bleed himself before he ever allowed her sweet and gentle mind to be contaminated by scenes he will never forget. Honoria and one other… 

He closes his eyes and sees that dark, intelligent gaze fixed on his - accepting (and how rarely has he ever known acceptance!) everything he is. Eyes like that are far from blind to his many, many faults, but they laugh at him for imagining he’s any different from anyone else.  _ We all have broken pieces, Major,  _ he had said,  _ scars, dark holes we don’t want to visit too often or spend too much time in. Just don’t go digging yourself any new ones, okay?  _

He thinks of the times Klinger’s clever, capable hands have pulled a cover over him as he shook with shock and grief at losing another life. Those coverlets, though the same thin, army stock that lined his cot, always seemed to take on some of the warmth that lived in the hands arranging them; the icy center of him had always thawed in Klinger’s sunshiny presence. 

Thinking as he is about the young man, he is startled to hear Pierce speak his name. “I need you to make up your mind about Klinger.”

“What?” The words don’t make any sense, but there’s something harsh in Pierce’s tone - accusatory. 

“Three times this  _ month  _ I’ve dragged that sweet, pretty kid out of his bed to help you. And he comes. He doesn’t ask questions. And the next day he’s white as a sheet and shaky, but proud to have helped.”

“And?”

“He’s not a security blanket, Charles!”

“What are you suggesting?” 

“Not suggesting. Telling. Klinger’s head over heels in love with you, you idiot. And you let him in when you won’t even  _ look  _ at anyone else, so there’s a damned good chance you’re in love with him, too. So tell him, or stop using him.”

He sits up with a violence that registers in the springs of the cot; they seem to scream for him. “In love? With a man? Don’t be preposterous, Pierce!” 

“With a person, Charles. Though I’d bet Klinger looks better in skirts than anyone else you’ve ever had on your arm. And I know you’ll hate me for being crude, but if you told him ‘good girl,’ in the right context he’d probably pass out from sheer lust.”

“Pierce, please!” He doesn’t even know what he’s asking for, but Pierce seems to - his eyes are wise, his gaze unswerving and relentless.

“I’m trying to help you. I know, it’s asking you to be really brave. But you don’t need me to tell me what you stand to gain. You know what he’s like. You know his heart. You’ve been warming your hands over it for weeks.” 

“You think that I’m hurting him.” 

Pierce nods. “Those nights he’s sat with you, what do you do?”

“Nothing. He talks. He curls up like a cat, you know?”

Pierce thinks about teasing him, saying that anyone who moves like  _ that  _ has to be good in bed, but his goal is more important than his compulsive need to joke. “And have you been listening? What do you think inspires all that stuff he’s saying?”

“His near-inexhaustible kindness.”

“Well, sure, he does have that. But I think he would run out of words with anyone else. The reason he has so much to say is that he’s telling you how mad he is for you, how he fell for you the first day you got here.”

Charles looks -and is - terrified. “How do you know that?”

“I saw his face. It started out as attraction, sure, but you know as well as I do that he’d never give his body without his heart. I’ll bet if you think hard, you’ll be able to figure out when you got that part of him. You would have been able to hear it in his voice easy enough. The rest of us sure as hell have heard it before. I’ve seen him say ‘Major,’ and have Potter blushing behind his mask.”

“Pierce, I am a Winchester. My family…”

“Charles, your family has been making your choices for your whole life. Now, you look me in the eyes and tell me that some of those choices didn’t almost destroy you. Tell me the reason you and your sister live in grandmama’s house  _ isn’t  _ because living at home nearly suffocated you.”

Charles manages a faint, agonizing smile. “Winchesters do not lie, either.”

“Your family could have gotten you out and we both know it. They left you here to make you worthy of them. Don’t you see how cruel that is? Don’t you deserve something to make up for that? You’re going to take home the nightmares. We all are. Take your boyfriend, too. Then if you wake up screaming, he can hold you and remind you that you’re home.” 

Charles says nothing.

Pierce isn’t finished, won’t be until he makes him see. “It’s  _ your _ life. You have a chance right here and right now to make it a happy one. Aren’t you old enough to be emancipated yet?” 

He sees Charles considering, knows he’s given him a lot to process. “You’re sure? About Maxwell? You aren’t guessing?”

“I’m sure. So are you. And, if you’re interested, I think I have a way to make your family accept Klinger whether they want to or not.”

He smiles brilliantly when Charles says, “Go on.”

“You write them - or, better, do one of those recorded letter things you do - and you ask them if they’d rather have a dead heir or a live son, because we both know you’ve thought of checking out of this place.”

He cannot believe that Pierce knows this about him. “What… what does that have to do with Maxwell?”

“He’s the reason you stayed. He saved your life. And if they want you alive, they get him, too.”

_ You as the other half of my life…  _ It is certainly a reason to live, to  _ want  _ to live. “I never thought it could be possible,” he admits, “never allowed myself to approach hope, even in my thoughts…” 

“Well, get thinking! This is doable! Also, you’re a war hero, Charles. You’ve saved more men than any baby Lieutenant that ever led a group of men up Heartbreak Ridge. Remind them of it. If they threaten to disown you, you threaten back. What will they look like if they turn their backs on a soldier fighting for democracy?” 

“It is illegal, you know.”

“I got you covered there, too.”

“You… you’ve put some thought into this.” He is experiencing a great deal of admiration for his fellow surgeon in this moment. 

Pierce hears the gratitude and affection in his voice. “I care about you. Both of you. Here’s your story. You’re a brilliant doctor, no?”

“I thought so once, yes.” Lately, he’s lost more lives than he has saved. 

“Right. Klinger is your friend who was injured in the war. He needs looking after that he obviously can’t afford but which you can. You’d love to discuss the nature of the ailment but that simply isn’t polite and, besides, there’s this pesky confidentiality issue that doctors must uphold.”

Charles is impressed. This fairytale Pierce has spun transforms him into an altruist. Klinger will endure a few assessing, sideways looks, perhaps, but Charles thinks he will do so happily to be in his bed. 

“So,” Pierce goes on, “you see, it makes perfect sense that you’re in his room in the middle of the night because he’s your sick friend and you’re taking care of him.”

“That’s quite ingenious. Have you run it by Hunnicut yet?”

“Yeah. Peg is uh, Peg is fixing up the den. For me.”

“What about your father and Crabapple Cove?”

“I’ll spend the summers there.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Give me a chance to tell you the same, would you? Go get him, Charles. Make all his dreams come true and then dream up some new ones.” 

“Would you get him for me? It will be the last time, I promise.”

“I’d love to.” 

Max meets him where he always does, the generator shed where they have created an impromptu hideaway from the world. His eyes are wide and white, searching for him, worried for him. 

“Major? You okay?”

“I am now.” He lets the smaller man join him and sees Klinger’s surprise when he smiles and says, “I am sorry, Max, that I didn’t realize.” 

“Realize what? What are you talking about?” 

“I have been relying so much on you, dear-heart, that I did not realize how much I had come to care for you. Am I correct, Maxwell, in thinking that you also care for me?” 

“Yeah,” he sounds scared, shaky. “More than anything, Major.” 

Charles gathers him then, as if he’s always done so. “You’ve fixed me so often when I was broken into pieces. I would like to take care of you for a change.”

“You don’t owe me,” Klinger protests.

Charles brushes gentle fingers over his face, makes his eyes close at the touch. “Let me convince you to be mine for good.”

Klinger leans into his touch, unable to do otherwise. “Won’t take much.” 

“Glad to hear it.” He claims his mouth and his kiss becomes a smile as Klinger moans for him - not to enflame him, but because he cannot help it. 

“How did you stand it?” he asks without meaning to. “Those other nights?” 

“How did you? You must have felt something.” 

_ I felt you. You calling me back to life after so much death.  _ “I felt you help me out of the dark. I felt safe. I didn’t know I could have more than that.”  _ A friend explained it to me.  _ “So, I didn’t allow myself to hope for more.” 

“You can have everything I’ve got,” Klinger promises and Charles realizes he’s been saying so all along. 

“Maxwell, do you know how very special you are?”  _ It will take a lifetime to show you _ ,  _ but Pierce has shown me that a lifetime is possible. A life with you.  _ He lays the smaller man down to show him with his lips and his hands and he sees Klinger look wonderingly up at him as he grasps that this is forever. 

The body that has been as a bandage to him gives up its sweetest secrets and in touching him, making him his, Charles is healed. 

End! 

  
  



End file.
